Relic Hunting in Upstate New York - Discovery of Unusual Find
1. Recovering Boy Scout Memorabilia at Former Boy Scout Camp Site, page 1
The art of treasure hunting proved to be more than a mere expression for me one day that I spent relic hunting with my buddy Peter at the site of a ghost town somewhere in Dutchess County, Upstate New York. Peter invited me to explore the location of a ghost settlement situated on the hill, now taken by the forest, where many root cellars were still visible here and there.
There were two wooden structures, the ruins of a barn and a log cabin, still remaining at the site. The log cabin was not that old, and probably had been rebuilt a few times, and served as a shelter for the local boy scouts back in 1930s.
The historic facts on former presence of the boy scout camp at this location were proven quickly when I recovered the US boy scout memorabilia item - a tie holder - a nice collectible relic, within first 10 minutes of metal detecting at the spot.
But that was the only good find unearthed there.
A Tie Holder of American Boy Scouts
After an hour of "fruitless" metal detecting, Peter and I decided that it was time to hit the "hot" spots on another side of the hill where a few cellar holes were clustered. After we metal detected there for four hours and found nothing but a handful of Indian Head Pennies and some plain coat buttons, we concluded that the site had been visited by other treasure hunters many times before.
Our last resort was the area around the barn, a meadow in the wide open, located on top of the hill. Now we had to face the challenge of struggling with tall grass in addition to mosquitos and heat. In an hour, we were beat after digging numerous large square nails, fragments of iron roof sheet, broken axe heads, and other junk.
As we had only one hour of daylight available, Peter and I decided to metal detect our way from the meadow back into the surrounding forest and in a direction of our parked vehicle. We walked fast so I tried to swing the search coil as wide as possible, without overlapping each swing, but keeping the swings close to one another.
Metal detecting in such manner with Spectrum XLT metal detector was to my advantage because the faster XLT's coil motion would provide deeper target's detection. I hoped that I could get at least a partial good signal if there was any.
